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Google Now Gains Car Rental, Concert Tickets, Reminders While You Search & More

More cards have come to Google’s predictive search service, Google Now, including information to alert you to your car rentals, concert tickets and a way to set reminders related to TV shows, book releases and more, when you are searching.

Car Rentals

Google posted the news to its Android page on Google+, since these are only updates for the Android version of Google Now. Google explained that car rental reservations will now show up, similar to this example:

Concert Tickets

If you have a concert ticket in your Gmail, Google Now will detect that and display it if you are near the venue at the time of the event:

TV Card Gets Smarter

Something we may explore more, Google says the TV card has been updated so that it will tell you info about news and music in what you’re viewing, if you have a smart TV (types and more info not explained) or if you let it listen to the program:

Reminders In Search

Looking for music artists, movie actors, filmmakers or TV shows on your phone? In some cases, Google Now will allow you to set reminders to be alerted to when new albums, book releases or TV episodes are out. Here’s how it worked for me, when I searched for “Breaking Bad” using Google Now:

Unfortunately, when I searched for “The World’s End,” I didn’t get any reminder of when the movie will be out.

Commute Sharing Card & More

Also added were:

Improved public transit cards

NCAA football scores

Commute sharing card

The commute sharing card will allow others to track your movements and get a better sense of when you’ll arrive. Google says about it:

When leaving work, you can now choose to inform your loved ones that you are on your way home. Learn more at http://goo.gl/bVUkLY

It has to be turned on and off manually.

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http://www.phplinkdirectory.com David DuVal

Instead of Google Now, I am thinking of using the alternative called Later Google. I’m not looking to have Google even more in my life. Since the upgrade of Google Maps, so often it is not responsive. If a reminder does popup to tell me about the event, there is a reasonably good chance Android won’t get me there, or I need to pull over in LA traffic and wait.

http://www.LeadDiscovery.com/ Jerry Nordstrom

I think Google’s application of the technology is fantastic and both needed and wanted in the consumer marketplace. However, I believe the largest obstacle to be removed in order to achieve success is for Google (and all services) to take the “creepy” out of convenience. How? Digital independence.

Create a central repository of an individuals unique digital data, encrypted for the individual’s use only. From there the individual could manage that data, who has access to it, what those sharing relationships entail, and monitor how existing permissions to the data have been utilized.

There are many directions this model could take off on. However the most important principal is that it is the Individual that controls their data and has a say in the relationships formed around it. If you’re entire life is now mapped out into a digital form, where it is used to influence many real world factors about your life, and you have no access to, nor control over it… do you live in a “free society”?
Where will this leave us in 10 or 20 years when every aspect of a person’s life will be captured, digitized and stored starting at Birth?

- I admit this is “if I had a magic wand” proposition – But the point is that until individuals have control over their own data there will be resistance, mistrust and downright hostility towards entities who deploy the technology that utilizes the individual’s data.